In a serendipitous discovery along Australia’s coastline, messages in a bottle penned by two Australian soldiers during World War I have resurfaced after more than a century. These rare finds offer a poignant glimpse into the past, capturing the hopes and camaraderie of soldiers on their way to the battlefields of France.

The intriguing find was made by the Brown family on October 9 at Wharton Beach, located near Esperance in the state of Western Australia. Deb Brown shared on Tuesday that her husband Peter and daughter Felicity stumbled upon the Schweppes-brand bottle just above the waterline during one of their routine quad bike outings to clean the beach of litter.

“We regularly clean up our beaches and would never overlook a piece of trash,” Deb Brown explained. “This little bottle was there, almost waiting for us to pick it up.”

Sealed within the thick, clear glass were letters written in pencil by Privates Malcolm Neville, aged 27, and William Harley, aged 37. The letters, dated August 15, 1916, conveyed a sense of cheerfulness despite the looming uncertainties of war.

The soldiers had set sail aboard the troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat, which departed from Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, on August 12, 1916. Their journey was part of a larger mission to reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on Europe’s Western Front, a voyage that would take them far from home to the heart of conflict.

Their troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat had left the South Australia state capital Adelaide to the east on Aug. 12 of that year on the long journey to the other side of the world where its soldiers would reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on Europe’s Western Front.

Neville was killed in action a year later. Harley was wounded twice but survived the war, dying in Adelaide in 1934 of a cancer his family say was caused by him being gassed by the Germans in the trenches.

Neville requested the bottle’s finder deliver his letter to his mother Robertina Neville at Wilkawatt, now a virtual ghost town in South Australia. Harley, whose mother was dead by 1916, was happy for the finder to keep his note.

Harley wrote “may the finder be as well as we are at present.”

Neville wrote to his mother he was “having a real good time, food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea.”

The ship was “heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry,” Neville wrote, using a now faded Australian colloquialism meaning very happy.

Neville wrote that he and his comrades were, “Somewhere at Sea.” Harley wrote that they were, “Somewhere in the Bight,” referring to the Great Australian Bight. That’s an enormous open bay that begins east of Adelaide and extends to Esperance on the western edge.

Deb Brown suspects the bottle didn’t travel far. It likely spent more than a century ashore buried in the sand dunes. Extensive erosion of the dunes caused by huge swells along Wharton Beach in recent months probably dislodged it.

The paper was wet, but the writing remained legible. Because of that, Deb Brown was able to notify both soldiers’ relatives of the find.

The bottle “is in pristine condition. It doesn’t have any growth of any barnacles on it. I believe that if it had been at sea or if it had been exposed for that long, the paper would’ve disintegrated from the sun. We wouldn’t have been able to read it,” she said.

Harley’s granddaughter Ann Turner said her family was “absolutely stunned” by the find.

“We just can’t believe it. It really does feel like a miracle and we do very much feel like our grandfather has reached out for us from the grave,” Turner told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Neville’s great nephew Herbie Neville said his family had been brought together by the “unbelievable” discovery.

“It sounds as though he was pretty happy to go to the war. It’s just so sad what happened. It’s so sad that he lost is life,” Herbie Neville said.

“Wow. What a man he was,” the great nephew added with pride.